This is a shot from the beach near my home in San Diego. It’s the Torrey Pines State Beach, and I had been photographing the family for Christmas pictures. After we wrapped up there, the sun had quickly set and I caught sight of this sunset scene.

There must have been a little bit of haze in the distance because the red glow mixed with the deep blue of the sky above and created this purple light that covered the water. Processing on this photo was very minimal, and the colors reflect what was actually seen.

Rather than just capturing the sunset and the colors, I chose to locate myself such that the lifeguard station was included in the frame. The station and the sandy foreground aren’t well lit, but they add enough of an anchor to balance out the open expanse of the sky. I had toyed around with brightening up the lower portion of the image, but it didn’t look right to me and it distracted from the colors at mid-frame.

Thanks man! We certainly have no shortage of these types of sunsets. It’s strange, we either get this kind of sunset with absolutely no clouds, or the whole sky is covered with the marine layer. It’s not often that we have patchy clouds, especially in the evening.